Justification
by Sivol
Summary: In a world where not everything is black and white, it seems that almost anyone can find reasonable justification for anything they do. The question is, where do you draw the line? DarkLord!Harry, AU from Book 1
1. Chapter 1

Harry looked down to his hands in awe. A simple grip had managed to form blisters and burns on his captor's hand and wrist the likes of which young Harry could have never expected. His head pounded as what felt like a million and one thoughts raced through his mind, but it all was cut short as he heard the approaching Quirrel-Voldemort yell in rage. While he held his breath and his hands trembled, the boy-who-lived reached out for his enemy's face to hold him off. A wretched scream erupted from Quirrel and Voldemort simultaneously as the skin under the boy's hands began to char and blister. Harry flinched, startled. With a glance to the man's hand he realized that some magic in him had awoken and had caused the complete amputation of Quirrel's hand via some sort of invisible fire. He looked back to the man's face and realized he had a choice-spare Quirrel's life, or end his misery now. The eleven year old child felt something shift inside of him, his stomach turned and twisted and it was as though whatever was causing his head to hurt had broken and freed his mind from the pain. He chose the latter.

As Quirrel fell, screaming in agony, Harry's own shouts chorused with his once professor's. Soon, Voldemort's own screams joined in and the echos of the three filled the chamber and many parts of the school. Harry's scar burned badly, so badly he thought a moment that this must be his punishment for choosing murder over mercy. As Quirrel's body crumbled beneath his grip, Harry stumbled forward in pain and terror. Finally able to breathe, he inhaled loudly and sharply, only to burst into a coughing fit as some smoky mass flew through his body. Within seconds, Harry was unconscious.

* * *

A very short while after Harry had left the confines of his hospital bed, the boy felt that he desperately needed to speak with Headmaster Dumbledore. He'd told the man of the happenings within the chamber that Quirrel and Voldemort had confined him to, and thus far the good headmaster had said nothing of it. This time he was determined to get some answers.

He approached the Headmaster's office and knocked. The pain in his head had begun again. Silence came from the other side. He knocked once more, and the old man's raggedly tired voice told him to enter. As the boy came through, he shut the door behind him and took a seat at the Headmaster's table. "I have some questions, Headmaster Dumbledore." He said as he glanced down to his hands. "Something that... I don't know, it's weird."

Albus took in a long breath and nodded his head towards the boy. "I'm sure you do, my boy. What can I help you with?"

For a moment, Harry fiddled with his fingers then looked back to the man before him. The pressure behind his eyes intensified. "That... thing I did... down there. To Quirrel... was- I mean did I... I murdered him... didn't I? Am I evil?" He asked sincerely, worry etched into his features.

Pained laughter came from Dumbledore as he reached for the boy's hands and patted them gently. "No, Harry-you didn't murder him and you're certainly not evil. There was nothing premeditated about what you did. You merely acted in self defense. Truly it was a matter of kill, or be killed." He released the boy's hands and leaned back once more. "I trust in you, Mr. Potter, to always know right from wrong. You've a good head on your shoulders, and there is nothing wrong with saving your own life."

"B-But he's dead." Harry argued. "At my hand. Surely that's the definition of murder?" He seemed so lost, so confused.

The Headmaster thought on this a moment then shook his head. "You seem to have a clearly cut definition of good and evil. White and black. What you've yet to realize, my boy, is that there are many layers of grey in between the two. Some things are neither good nor evil, they're simply necessary." He paused a moment and took in the lost look on the boy's face. "Think of it this way. If you, as you are now, were to go into the woods and slaughter a bear merely to see what it was like, that would be wasteful, and in some eyes evil. An unnecessary loss of life, something without a good reason. However, take that same action, but put yourself in another role. If you were starving, lost in the woods, unable to find your way out, and you saw a bear which you knew you could eat the meat of, and then you slaughtered it cooked its meat and ate it to nourish you, that would be necessary. Not evil, merely survival. A layer of grey between the two. Now put yourself in another role, say that bear was rabid, destroying nearby towns, biting people, killing them-it was going out of its way to ensure the destruction of every living thing in its path. Though you would not be eating it, killing it would surely be good, as the relief of the people in nearby towns could tell you. No longer plagued by a monster who was destroying them and their life, they would rejoice, and some may even brand you a hero, truly by that action you have done good. That is what you did within the chamber with the Dark Lord, you brought peace to the people nearby by killing a monster. Yes, he is dead, yes, it was at your hand, but no child, it was no murder, and you are not evil. Under the right circumstances, any action which would normally be seen as evil, can be considered good."

A sudden release from pain and pressure flooded his head as Harry felt he finally understood. "So sometimes... killing bad people can be good?" He asked to ensure the answer he'd formed was correct. He received a nod from the headmaster and proceeded to nod himself. "One more question, Sir." He glanced to his hands then back to Dumbledore as he placed said hands upon the table in front of him, palms up. "What did I do? What was that? The invisible fire that burned them?"

Albus swallowed thickly and shifted his weight uncomfortably. He looked to the boys hands where not a single blister or scratch had formed. He cleared his throat and glanced to the wall where the Sorting Hat slept. "Surely it was something that protected you- likely from your mother." He looked back to Harry with his lips pursed gently. "A protective power left in your skin from your mother's sacrifice most assuredly." He said rather quickly.

Harry frowned as he pulled his hands back to his lap and sat back in his chair. He wasn't sure he believed what had just been said- the conviction wasn't there. It hadn't had the same tone, honesty, or elaboration tacked on to it that the previous had. Certainly this was a lie... "Thank you, Sir." Harry said as he stood, having decided that he wouldn't prolong the conversation if he were merely going to be lied to, especially by someone he was supposed to trust. "Sorry to have taken your time, I'll be on my way." He quickly made an exit.

* * *

The short rest of the school year had Harry off and alone. He'd abandoned hanging out with his friends in favor of research. Anything and everything to do with fire that he could find in the school's library he read and reread for as much knowledge as he could find. And knowledge he certainly did find. There were spells that caused fire, made it turn different colors, and even put it out, all of which the boy copied down to take home with him to study in case he needed them later. There were also a plethora of potions which did much the same, and one potion that caused an everlasting fire that could never be put out unless by its counter potion. That he didn't have the same interest in- he didn't much care for potions. Between spells on how to make a fire burn hotter, to how to make it so cold one could smother themselves in fire and stand perfectly unharmed, Harry wound up taking notes on every single fire spell he could find. The only issue was, there was no information about invisible fire.

Finally, three days before the students were to return home, Hermione had had enough. She found him in the library jotting notes down amid a pile of books and she pulled him up from his writing. "Harry, you've got to stop." She told him as she walked the resistant boy away from the tomes. "I'm all for you studying, in fact I wish you'd have started a long time ago, but this is beyond healthy. You're missing meals to come here, you've lost at least a whole stone since you've taken this up. You're not even paying attention in class anymore. Harry, you wont make it through next year if you keep this up. I'm worried."

With a sigh, Harry glared up towards the ceiling. "You wouldn't understand. I need to know something, and none of these books have the answer."

"Then if you know that, why are you still researching them?" Hermione asked with furrowed brows.

For a moment the boy ruffled his fingers through his hair and shook his head. "I don't know... you're right." He walked back towards the books and closed everything he'd opened. He took the notes he'd painstakingly wrote out and stacked them together then tucked them under his arm. With Hermione's help, he took the research books back to the return cart. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I just have a question that needs to be answered."

The two walked out into the hall and Hermione nudged Harry's shoulder with her own. "Well, maybe I can help you." She offered. "Maybe if you tell me what the question is, I might know the answer."

Harry shook his head. "No, I don't think even you know the answer. After all, it wasn't in any of the books at the library."

"Ask someone then." She said as the worry etched back into her features. "Someone who knows about the sort of thing you're in need of."

Silence crept in as Harry mulled this over. "I can only think of one person who might know... I'll ask him on the last day." He promised.

"And you'll come to supper?" Hermione asked as they approached the Grand Staircase. "No more missing meals?"

With a nod and a smile, Harry agreed.

* * *

As the last day rolled around, Harry kept his word. Some twenty minutes before the school was to out-pour with students abuzz and ready to get home, Harry made his way down to the dungeons. If anyone would know things about the types of magic that burn peoples' faces off without a single lick of fire, it would be the scariest man in school.

He knocked on Professor Snape's office door. Silence... He knocked again, only to receive the repeated answer of nothing. Once more, and all the same. In frustration Harry went back to the main floor and into the Great Hall. He searched the head table for any sign of the dark Professor, but found none. He spent the last bit of time he had left feverishly scouring the castle for any sign of the Potions Professor, but alas, as the final bell rang out it appeared that through no fault of his own, he couldn't keep his word. He'd simply have to ask the man next year when he returned.

He thickly swallowed and made his way with the rest of the students back out towards the carriages which took them to the trains. His mind was clouded and the tenseness in his muscles intensified as he took the long journey back to Number 4 Privet Drive.


	2. Chapter 2

Darkened clouds littered the sky as the sun slowly set beyond the horizon. The humidity in the air had risen since Harry had gotten off of his train back to London, and the young boy could feel the rain coming. He sat outside of the train station on his trunk, with Hedwig asleep in her cage beside him. Uncle Vernon was late... Four hours late.

Surprisingly the train station was still busy. People walked by every few minutes, and some even stopped to ask Harry if he was okay, to which he would always reply, "I'm fine, I'm just waiting for my ride... He'll be here soon." Everyone who had asked seemed satisfied with this answer and would go along their way once more. This left Harry much time to think about all of the reasons Vernon could be late. The foremost thought in his mind, was that his uncle simply didn't care, as that seemed to be the case more often than not with anything that Harry did.

Finally, he saw the silver car drive up. A sigh of relief came from Harry as he picked up Hedwig's cage and made his way to the back door of the vehicle.

"Not in the back... put it in the boot of the car." Vernon told the boy as he unlocked said trunk.

"What?" Harry asked, his grip on the cage that held his familiar tightened. "She can't go in the boot! She'll suffocate."

Hedwig roused some and chirped at the two. Vernon glared at the both of them. "Either it goes in the trunk, or you release it." He said, his voice unwavering. "It left a pellet in my back floorboard on the way to this blasted place, there'll be no more of that nonsense."

Rage coursed through Harry's veins, but he stopped short when he remembered something. Hedwig was an excellent judge of distance and address- her primary function that she'd been trained for was delivering mail after all. She could easily find her way home, and get a good fly in in the meantime. "I'll release her." He said defiantly as he opened the cage and held his hand out for Hedwig to step on. "Fly home." He told her as he nuzzled her cheek a little, to which she made a trilling hoot. When he released her, the owl took off into the sky, destination in mind.

A scoff came from Vernon. "Good... don't need any bloody animals making a mess of the house anyway- you do that enough on your own." He muttered. "Get your trunk in the boot then get in the back, we're late boy."

Harry withheld the remarks in his mind as he loaded up his trunk. At least he'd gotten help from an upperclassman earlier to make the thing more lightweight and maneuverable. He put the empty cage in the trunk and as quickly as he could shuffled into the back seat. In a flash they were off.

The ride home was long and quiet. Vernon only spoke to complain about the traffic, curse at the stop lights, and scold Harry once for hiccuping. They boy kept quiet though. He knew at least when he got home, he could lay down in his bed and let the thoughts of the day melt away. The only thing he'd really been thankful to the Dursleys for was when they switched his room from the cupboard under the stairs, to the smallest bedroom upstairs. It was at least four times the size of the cupboard, and for that content.

As they rolled into the driveway, Harry noticed that Hedwig sat on their mailbox waiting for them. She fluttered her wings and hooted as the boy got out from the car and jogged over to her. "Good girl!" He said with a smile as she hopped onto his shoulder. The poor thing panted, likely in exhaustion, but still Harry knew it was better than having her cooped up in the trunk the whole ride there, especially with how many potholes Vernon had hit along the way.

The man growled as he stood up from the car. "Can't believe that thing actually made it here." He muttered as he searched through his keys to lock the vehicle.

Harry smirked to himself as he pulled the trunk from the boot of the car and led it towards the front door. This smirk was short lived though.

"No." Vernon said as he approached the door and took hold of the trunk. He ignored the boy's protests as he led them both inside. Once they were in and the door was closed and locked behind him, Vernon turned and gave a disgusting grin of his own. "Petunia and I have been talking, you're not to have access to your magic stuff while you're here." The clock in the living room began to chime. "In fact, this is going to be locked away in the cupboard, and you'll return, with that disgusting animal, to old room. This way we can keep an eye on you and keep you from doing anything 'magic'. Petty's made another list, you can start your chores tomorrow at 5 am. She thought it best to give you the night to process all of this. Oh and, we've already had supper so you don't have to cook tonight. We expect the house to be spotless by the time I return from work tomorrow." The man dragged the trunk to the closet and tossed it haphazardly into the small space as the clock gave its last chime, signifying it was 9 pm. "Go to bed before I change my mind about allowing that thing in the house at all!"

Harry clenched the cage tight and he ran upstairs, only to receive a warning about running in the house. He was so completely thrown that he didn't even notice the addition of four more locks to the outside of his door. He simply ran in and shut it behind him. The boy's hands fumbled as he went to open the cage that held his owl, but he managed to free her once more. She hooted quietly at him and flew to the top of his wardrobe where she sat and began to groom herself.

Harry opened his curtains only to find that now they were covered in black iron bars. His ears twitched and he turned his head as he heard the locks on his door began to shift into place. "No..." He whispered as the final and seventh lock was applied. "Idiot!" He chided himself as he recalled that he'd put his wand into his trunk. He was trapped in a cage of his own.

No supper, no food since breakfast that day actually, no wand, and none of his notes to study about fire over the summer. He growled and kicked the side of his wardrobe.

"Stop scuffing mY FURNITURE!" Petunia's voice shrieked from downstairs.

Harry winced and laid on his bed. "Sorry Aunt Petunia." He called. "I fell." He lied. The boy sighed as he laid down on his bed. It wouldn't be the first night he went to bed hungry, and it certainly wouldn't be the last if things kept going this way. He knew two things- he needed to steal the key to the cupboard from his aunt and uncle's room, likely while they were cleaning it, and he needed to get his wand, his books, and his notes to his room without being seen. He started forming a plan.

* * *

Harry's alarm sounded off at 5 am sharp, just a few minutes after his uncle's had gone off. The boy had spent the entire night awake, just trying to get to sleep, but it didn't work at all. He'd spent the vast majority of his time watching Hedwig alternate between cleaning herself and sleeping.

Finally the locks on the door begun to move and Vernon gave one sharp pound to it. "The list is on the table in the hallway. Do the weeding first so you don't wake Petty." He called.

With determination set on his face, Harry jumped from his bed. He'd been thinking about it all night, and he believed himself to have formed the perfect plan.

His first step, do the morning chores as he was supposed to. Make no fuss, get in as little trouble as possible, and wake Aunt Petunia with her customary breakfast-in-bed at 7:30 am.

The front door closed and Harry quickly made his way out of the mini prison that was his room. He fumbled down the stairs and into the hallway where he found his list of things to do that day on the table. "Only 32." He muttered as he scanned over it.

Vernon had said to do the weeding first, however it was still too dark out to see. He figured that he could probably fit it in between dawn and when he was supposed to wake Petunia. He decided to get on with cleaning out the fridge first. Since he was to throw away the spoiled food, and food that had reached its 'best by' date, he knew nobody would miss it if he were to make his own little feast out of it.

After a quick ransacking he had created a meal that consisted of semi-spoiled ham, a couple of pieces of squished bread which had reached its due date the day before, and orange juice from a bottle that had an odd ring of something that looked suspiciously bad along the bottom. He was happy though, as he knew this would probably be the majority of meals that he had this summer.

It was still dark out, so he couldn't weed yet, but he needed to do something else far enough away it wouldn't wake Petunia. Harry glanced to his list and scanned over it, then settled on sweeping mopping the kitchen. Finally, at the completion of that, he could begin weeding. First though, he set an alarm so he knew when to cook breakfast.

* * *

Harry knocked 3 times on Petunia's door. He opened it and called for the woman to wake up as he brought in her breakfast- three eggs fried over easy which she'd never finished all of but for some reason insisted on having, 2 slices of bacon, 1 slice of toast, a side of jam in a tiny tiny doll-sized platter to the side, a glass of fresh orange juice- hand squeezed, and a sprig of mint in said orange juice.

"Aunt Petunia?" He called as he sat the little bed table down over her lap. She gave a groggy response. "I've got something important that needs to be gotten from my trunk."

The woman sleepily glared daggers at him. "Unless it's life or death, no. You're not touching anything freaky from that school."

Harry cleared his throat some as he stepped back. "Actually it is life or death... for Hedwig." He waited for any sign of recognition from the woman but there was none. "My owl?"

"Oh... what is it?" She muttered as she spread the jam on the toast.

"I left her food in the trunk, I thought I'd be going back into it when I got home, so I didn't see any reason in keeping it out." The boy informed her as he glanced off towards his room. When he looked back he could see she wasn't really interested. "You know, if owls don't eat at least twice a day they start throwing up everywhere, then they can die." He lied. "And she only ate once yesterday I've already had to clean 2 piles of vomit today."

"Stop talking about vomit while I'm eating, you nasty little brat." Petunia scolded. "I'll get your damn owl food out of it myself."

"Wow, thanks Aunt Petunia!" Harry said with a grin. "It's in a box at the bottom of the trunk, under the stink pellets, beside the schoolbooks. Be careful about the stink pellets though, if you rustle them too hard explode and it'll smell like a sewer in here."

The woman glared at him a bit harder as she rethought her idea. "Dudley will be getting them when he wakes up then." She informed him. "Outside!"

"That's great." Harry said as he walked from the room. On to phase two: convince Dudley to also get other things.

Harry made a much grander feast for his pampered cousin, consisting of nearly 2 times what he'd given to his aunt. He also added in one of Dudley's favorites, two homemade donuts.

As he went to wake Dudley with his breakfast in bed, Harry seized his opportunity. "Oh Duddy-kins." He said with a grin as he knocked on the door. He brought in the food and sat it on the end table beside the boy. His voice lowered to a whisper to the other boy. "Aunt Petunia's gonna ask you to get my owl food from my trunk outside today. If you also get my wand and my stack of parchment that's tied off with red twine, I'll do magic to help you all summer." He lowly informed the other boy.

Dudley smacked his lip as he awoke and rubbed at his eye."What kind of magic?"

"I can do a spell, it's called an obliviate. Basically any time you do something bad or wrong, and aunt Petunia or uncle Vernon find out, I can make them forget you did anything wrong." The boy tried.

Dudley looked elated at first, then his face fell. "Wait, what's to stop you from using that on me to make me forget you promised?" He asked with a frown.

Damn... seemed like Duddy-kins has started to grow some brain cells. He needed that wand though! "Wizard's oath. Unbreakable vow. Basically it makes it so I can't break a promise I made to you, or I die." He promised. "That would be the very first spell I did, and if I even start to utter 'obliv' at you, you can punch me."

"Deal!" Dudley said with a grin. "Now go away. I wanna eat."

"Red twine wrapped parchment, my wand, and the owl food. Don't forget." Harry reminded him.

Soon the boy was off once more downstairs. He gathered some necessary supplies before Petunia woke up. A notepad and a pen being the main ones, and a small bag of snacks that he could later blame on Dudley having taken should he need to. Yes, this day was going quite well.


	3. Chapter 3

"MOOoooooOOOM!" Dudley's voice called with a crack at the end. "I don't wanna mess with his stupid magic stuff!" The boy said in protest, all according to he and Potter's plan.

Petunia scowled lightly but sighed and pinched his cheek. "I'll let you have ice cream for lunch, my sweet baby duddy-kins."

The boy pretended to mull this over for a moment before he looked towards his mother with conviction. "And a slice of cake?"

"Oh don't be silly, we don't have any cake." Petunia said with a pat to his head.

Dudley crossed his arms and turned his head. "Then the freak's owl can starve. If I'm expected to possibly get creepy stuff stink all over me, then the reward has to be worth it." His stubborn demeanor took hold as he started towards the stairs.

Petunia glanced to the cupboard and rolled the idea of getting covered with smelly wizarding stuff in her own head. "I suppose I could always go buy a cake from the store..." She muttered.

"Okay then." Dudley said with a nod as he wandered back to her and held out his hand.

The woman sighed once more then dug around her pocket and handed him a key. "Remember- outside! If it gets all over you, you can take a nice bubble bath." She told him as she slipped her shoes on. "I'll be back in 20 minutes."

Dudley unlocked the door to the cupboard and began to drag the trunk out as Petunia waved goodbye to him. He pulled the trunk outside to the back yard, where Harry was mowing the lawn, and sat it down. Harry turned off the lawnmower and looked at him somewhat confused.

Dudley smirked. "I'm getting ice cream, cake, and she's out of the house for 20 minutes, so she said, but she always chats with the lady behind the counter, so it'll probably be 40 minutes. You owe me." He said as he lifted open the lid.

The young wizard ran over to the trunk and scoured through it. He pulled out his notes, his wand, and his owl food. On top of that he pulled out the stink pellets and handed them to Dudley. "Take it for pranks- keep it hidden. PLEASE don't use them at home, or I'll get blamed." He pleaded.

"And your unbreaking oath vow thing?" Dudley asked as he tapped his foot and crossed his arms.

Nervousness set in to Harry's features as he fiddled with his wand in his hand. "Oh that... Well, okay listen. I never actually did it before, I've only read about it in a book. I think I remember well enough to do one, though. I know you stick out your hand like you're shaking hands, then you cast the spell, and some string or something ties your hands together, then you each say your part of the deal, and you dispell it. Problem is, it requires a third party, a 'bonder' or something. So if we're gonna do this, we need to find another witch or wizard."

"Ugh _more_ of you!" Dudley groaned as he closed the trunk and started to pull it back inside. "Alright, no funny business or I'll beat the crap out of you. I'm putting this back."

Harry sighed and crinkled his nose, but he agreed. Soon the roar of the lawnmower started again and Dudley had disappeared inside the house with the trunk. Minutes passed until he was outside again, and this time he waved to get Harry's attention. "I had an idea." Dudley said as his cousin turned off the mower once more. "You were gonna help me with stuff anyway, and frankly I don't wanna invite some random creep over to the house while mum's out. So how about you just help me with something now?"

Harry frowned and looked to the boy, unsure. "What do you want help with?"

"Make me handsome!" Dudley said as he stood tall with his chest puffed out.

The discontent on the young wizard deepened. "Er, you'd need a potion to do that, and I don't have the supplies or the ride to make the potion. Try something else."

A bird chirped off in the distance as Dudley thought about it. "Alright then, make me rich! Magic me 20,000 pounds!"

Harry slapped his own forehead with his hand. "It doesn't work that way, you can't just create legal currency, you'd have to steal it from somebody, and I'm not really in the mood to get sent to JUVIE! Something else." He said with a groan.

Dudley rolled his eyes. "Of course, it's gonna be like this for everything, isn't it? A reason why you can't do this, can't do that. Fine! Let me hold your wand."

Harry tensed as he clutched his wand tightly to his chest. "I... I guess so?" He said uneasily as he held out the wand to Dudley. "Be careful with it! Don't break it... they're 11 galleons a piece and I don't wanna have to figure out how to replace it on the first day of school next year."

"Yeah, yeah." Dudley muttered as he snatched the wand away. He held it in his hand and his brows furrowed. The boy switched to another hand then shook his right hand. "Tingly." He muttered.

For a moment Harry blinked. "What?"

With a shrug Dudley put the wand back into his right hand and began to wave it around. ZAP! A bolt of yellow light shot from the wand and blasted a scorch mark on the side of the house. "Woaah cool!" Dudley said with a wild grin.

Harry looked positively mortified. "GIVE IT BACK!" He yelled as he ran for the wand to snatch it away. "You're not supposed to be able to do that!" Harry winced as he thought of 100 different ways to get out of this mess, all leading back to disaster.

"Why not?!" Dudley demanded as he fought his cousin for the small wooden stick. "You do it."

"You're not a wizard! Muggles don't have magic!" Harry said as he reached up and grabbed the wand from his cousin. He panted and ran back to the scorch mark. "Oh no, oh no, they're gonna kill me. Scourgify!" He said, and soon a cleaning spell washed away the soot.

For a moment things were quiet as Harry examined what remained of the scorch mark on the side of the house. Dudley tilted his head to the side. "Did you call me a muggle?"

"Non-magical person is what it stands for. It literally means a person without magic." Harry glared back to Dudley. "You're a muggle, aunt Petunia's a muggle, uncle Vernon's a muggle. You shouldn't have been able to do anything with my wand... unless you're not a muggle and you're actually a wizard."

Silence. Both parties stood and stared at one another, then, from nowhere, Dudley shrieked. "AHHHHHH!" He ran back into the house at full speed. "Mum's gonna kill me! I'm a freak!" He screamed as he ran into his room and slammed the door behind him.

Harry shook his head at the spectacle and winced. He looked back out to the lawn that was still half mowed. This, he decided, was more important than some grass. The boy racked his brain in every way possible that he could think of to try to figure something out about this. He didn't know how to call anybody, he didn't know how to get hold of anybody, he didn't know of any floo networks nearby, and outside of stealing Vernon's car in the dead of night and stowing away to King's Cross Station, he didn't know how to get back to the wizarding world on his own from here. He truly was out of luck.

HONK! HONK! An obnoxiously loud car horn came from the front yard. Both boys had come out of their room to see what the commotion was, and they'd met outside standing beneath a massive triple decker bus. "We got your call, where do you need to go?"

Harry blinked at the man and shook his head. "I'm sorry you must be mistaken. Nobody called anybody."

A young man stepped out from the bus in a uniform. "Don't be silly. When a wizard waves his wand about in the air and calls, or thinks, for a way to go somewhere, we respond. Where do you need to go?"

Dudley looked at the man and his jaw dropped. "Oh my god this is a magic thing."

The young man raised an eyebrow then looked back to Harry. "Your friend's not very bright, is he?" He asked. "Look here, either you're coming, or you're not. Make up your minds, we can't hang around all day- places to go."

"We're coming!" Harry said at the same time that Dudley had said, "We're not!"

The two glared at one another. Harry held his wand up to Dudley. "Shush." He looked back to the bus attendant. "Actually, we're not coming."

"I literally just said that!" Dudley stated indignantly.

Harry ignored him. "I need you to go find Dumble- no, Hermione Granger. Or-or better yet, Ron Weasley- NO Molly Weasley! I don't know! Not her either... I need someone who won't go off telling people and who knows about this sort of thing, who won't lie to me, and who knows a lot- I already said that... Who knows about magic! Wizards! How to tell if someone's magic or not!" He nodded as he tried to get his thoughts straight. "Please go find someone! We don't have but 10 minutes left before they can get here though... can you do this? Oh who am I kidding that's impossible."

The attendant looked up to the bus driver. "Hey Ernest! Can we get someone here who knows about how to tell if a kid's magic or not, who won't lie, and who won't tell other people, who isn't a Dumbledore, Granger, or a Weasley in ten minutes or less?"

"Of course we can Stanley!" A gruff voice answered from inside. "Get in, we haven't got all day!"

The attendant looked back to the boys and tipped his hat towards them. "Back momentarily."

With that the doors slammed shut and in the blink of an eye the bus was gone. Harry and Dudley stood wide-eyed for a few seconds, then looked to one another. Dudley frowned. "If I'm a wizard, how come I didn't get the letters like you did to get me to that freaky magic school?"

"Nobody gets letters like that." Harry told him with a wave of his hand.

"You did." Dudley reminded him.

Harry rubbed at his face with his hands. "That's because I'm special, okay? Someone really wanted me there. Dumbledore told me that normally Hogwarts only sends one acceptance letter, if they don't respond, they don't go."

Some mixture of envy and irritation crossed Dudley's face. "What makes you so special? I've got more friends."

"Shut up Dudley, I-"

The bus screeched back into place and for a moment it stood still. Harry and Dudley looked to the doors as a dark figure approached from the other side. The glass panes swung open, and a tall wizard with long black robes and a hood obscuring half their face greeted them. "Potter." A low baritone, almost monotonous voice acknowledged.

Harry felt every muscle in his body tense. "Oh no, not you..."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N** : TW: abuse

* * *

"Seriously?!" Harry looked to Stanley and Ernest. "Snape? Out of anyone, literally ANYONE in the entire wizarding world, you got SNAPE?! Why? What did I do to deserve this?"

The dark wizard simply stared at the boy. Stanley shrugged. "Look kid, most people have floos, or they apparate, or they fly their brooms. We have a pretty limited number of people who we cater too, and you were really specific about the kind of person you wanted. He fits the bill." He turned to Snape and tipped his hat. "Call us when you're ready."

The young man slipped back inside the bus and the doors closed behind him. In a flash the bus was off again. Harry stared at Snape then groaned. "Fine!" He started to storm back to the house but realized that perhaps he could use this opportunity to ask the question about fire that he'd missed on the last day of school. The doorknob felt particularly cold as he twisted it. "This way, Professor Snape." He said as he opened the front door to the house.

"If you're quite done with your tantrum." Severus said with a scowl as he entered the house. "You're lucky I even answered the call to begin with."

Harry growled and rolled his eyes, then ushered his cousin inside after the man. He started to lead them to the living room, then remembered that Petunia was due back at any moment. He instead took them both upstairs. "Dudley, can we use your bedroom?"

"PFF! No!" Dudley stated very matter-of-factly. "You may know this freak, but I don't, there's no way I'm letting him in my room."

Both Severus and Harry glowered to Dudley. Harry looked to say something, when Snape stepped up to him instead. "Little boy, I suggest you refrain from name calling. You may get away with it on other pompous little children such as Potter, but I can assure you, I will not tolerate such insolence. Do I make myself clear?"

Dudley swallowed thickly and he nodded rather fast. "Y-Yes Sir!" He said as he began to tremble. Harry scoffed. Dudley looked back to his cousin. "He's still not coming in my room."

Harry was about to dispute this idea when he heard the front door rattle. "My room! Now!" He whispered as he shoved the two others in there. Severus looked as though he were going to chide Harry as well, when Harry brought up his hand around the man's mouth and shook his head no. "You don't understand." He whispered very quietly. "I'm sorry Sir, I truly am, but you need to be quiet."

"Duddy-kins! I'm home with your cake deary!" Petunia called.

"I'll be down in a minute mum! I'm finishing up a game!" Dudley called.

"Where is that little cretin?" Petunia muttered. "Duddy-wuddy? Have you seen the boy?"

"Uhh, yeah, I told him to get me my bike from the shed! He's pumping the tires and washing it off." Dudley lied as he swallowed thickly.

"Oh of course. I'm so happy to hear you're going for exercise baby!" She said, then started to hum to herself as she meandered for the living room. Soon the far-away sound of a phone call rang out, and the two boys sighed in relief.

Harry finally removed his hand from Snape's mouth. He looked utterly terrified, red in the face, eyes a bit puffy. If one didn't know any better, the 12 year old looked as though he might almost shed a tear. "I have two questions for you, Professor. The first is a must, I need you to figure out if Dudley's magic. He held my wand and it did magic, so I think he might be, but I need it confirmed. Nobody can know right now, please, punish me all you want in school, but right now, please, please be quiet." He said in a low whisper.

Dudley tugged on Harry's shirt. "The bathroom window's free, you can climb out there to come inside. Use that magic cleany thing on the bike to make mum think that's what you were doing, okay?"

Harry nodded then as quietly as he could, scrambled from his room.

Severus stared at Dudley for a moment, then looked back to the door, then back to Dudley. "Did I see a large number of locks on the outside of Potter's door?" He asked.

Dudley nodded.

"Why?" Snape asked simply.

Dudley swallowed thickly. "So he can't get out at night when mum and dad are asleep."

Severus nodded as he pulled out his wand. "So Potter sneaks out of the house?"

"No..." Dudley shook his head. "That was just put up a few weeks ago to keep him from getting to his magic stuff while he was home for the summer."

The motion in the man stopped for a moment. He gave a sideways glance towards the child. "Hold out your palm." He stated quietly. He recited a small incantation over the boy's hand and it began to spark a little.

From below, the back door opened. Harry rolled the bicycle up to the door and left it on the little stone patio. "Dudley I finished you-"

"Hold on dear. I must call you back." Petunia's cheery voice called as she hung up the phone. The entire atmosphere changed as the woman with such a small frame caused such a large noise from stomping through the house. "There you are!" She shrieked angrily. "The lawn is half mowed, there are dishes from Duddy's breakfast still left in the sink, and you haven't even started on the upstairs chores yet! You know Vernon will be home early today, this house is to be spotless! No supper for you tonight, you little freak. And if you expect to get any breakfast tomorrow morning, you'll have your list finished by the time Vernon gets home!"

A resounding smack was heard as the woman's hand hit Harry on the face. "Y-Yes Aunt Petunia." He said meekly, barely audible to upstairs.

Severus looked from his spell towards the door and his scowl deepened. He glanced back to Dudley. "This is... normal?" He asked as he tried to still himself. Dudley simply nodded and glanced down to the bed. Severus looked to the boy's hand as the sparks finally died down and a small puff of purple smoke appeared. "Congratulations, you're a wizard." Severus deadpanned.

Doors rustled and for a few moments everything was quiet. Suddenly a shriek came from the back yard. "BOY COME HERE!" Petunia called angrily into the house. Hurried footsteps could be heard. Muffled talking began, then Snape cast another spell. Suddenly it was as though the two were right there near Snape and Dudley. Petunia's voice cracked. "-side of my house? What did you do?! More of that- that magic? Aren't you old enough to control it?"

"I-I didn't mean to!" Harry said as he moved away. "It was an accident! That's why they call it accidental magic, you aren't able to control it."

Another smack sounded, and this time a small scuffle. The two made their way to the shed and suddenly a loud clatter of objects falling sounded off as Harry let out a pained yelp. "CLEAN IT UP!" Petunia shrieked. "You're going to the cupboard tonight." She slammed the door to the shed behind her and wandered back into the house where she resumed her phone call.

Harry began to sniffle a bit as he tried to stand up. "Ow!" He winced. "Oh my god, oh my god, I can't bleed on their stuff." He scrambled out onto the grass, and his breathing became erratic. "He's gonna kill me." Harry's voice broke a little near the end.

Severus sat still, stony cold. He recited another incantation which turned off the sound spell he'd done earlier, then looked to Dudley. "The cupboard?" He asked, wand pointed to the child.

"H-His old room... sir." Dudley said.

"Elaborate."

Dudley pulled Harry's wadded up pillowcase which he used in place of a pillow onto his lap. "He got this room last year, cause the magic school sent him letters addressed to 'the cupboard under the stairs' so mum and dad got scared someone was watching them. They gave him a room finally, this one. When they're really mad at him they make him sleep in the cupboard since then."

"Locked?" Severus asked simply as he looked to the door.

"Yeah..."

The dark wizard took in a deep inhale then he let it out slowly. He nodded towards Dudley. A flash of pale light came from the man's wand as suddenly a doe appeared. "During a routine home visit to a muggle-wizard household, underage subject was found to be in danger due to the mistreatment by their guardians. The guardians responsible for mistreatment of the individual will be obliviated as per protocol, and all children will be seized immediately rehomed. Secondary underage subject thought to be muggle found to be wizarding. They will be rehomed together. All subjects will remain, against protocol, anonymous due to extreme circumstances surrounding their identity. I take full responsibility for rehoming them, and will send a progress report one week from today."

Dudley tensed as Snape sent off the doe to go wherever it was supposed to go. "Rehomed? You can't rehome me! You're not the police!"

Severus tilted his head towards Dudley and blinked at the boy. "Would you rather I get the police involved? Your parents would spend at least the next 15 years in prison. With this they simply forget you two exist and continue to live their pitiful lives in relative peace." He looked away as Dudley shrunk in shame. Severus stood and made his way to the door. "Stay here."

He walked across the top of the staircase and stared down. He couldn't see much into the living room, but he could hear the woman talking on her phone once more to someone. Very quietly the man descended the stairway. He made his way to the doorway and raised his wand to the woman who had her back turned. "Obliviate." He called.

She noticed too little too late. As Petunia was in a state of confusion, he slipped a very small vial out of his robes . With a sickening pop the cork was pulled out and he forced some of the liquid down her throat. Quickly she fell asleep and he hung up the phone. He laid her out on the sofa, then, for good measure, smacked her across the face. "Wench." He spat, then made his way outside.

"Child!" Severus called upstairs. "Come out back immediately." Snape made his way to the back door and opened it, then walked towards the shed. He opened the door to it and was actually taken aback at what he found.

Harry had a small knife sticking out of his right arm. A blood soaked homemade bandage made from the boy's now ripped shirt kept it from leaking everywhere as Harry frantically tried to put back everything that had fallen in the collision. "M'sorry!" He cried out as he heard the door behind him open. "I'm going as fast as I can, I'll get it done!"

Fear etched into his face as he turned to see Snape standing there instead. He stopped putting things back then began to breathe much faster. "It's okay! Don't worry, I'll fix this." Harry said with a nod as he began to shake. "It's just a little scratch, it's not too bad, pretend you didn't see anything. We can... we can all go back to normal, I'll fix this."

"Stop." Snape told him as Dudley approached from behind. "You're coming with me. We're going inside to wait for your uncle to return. During that time your wounds will be seen to." He looked to the boy behind him. "You are to make something to eat while we wait. When was the last time Potter ate?"

Dudley shrugged and Harry shook his head. "This- This morning. I had breakfast."

"You weren't allowed!" Dudley said.

"It was the stuff that was getting thrown out. It didn't matter it was spoiled anyway." Harry admitted.

Tension grew between the three as they stared between one another. Finally Severus pointed towards the house and looked at Dudley. "Go. Food. Now." He looked back to Harry and helped the shaking boy up as Harry's cousin ran off for the house. "Your aunt doesn't know who you are anymore, you or him. We'll do the same to your uncle when he arrives home." Snape informed him as they made their way towards the house as well. Harry started to try to pull away and say something when Snape interrupted him. "Don't argue with me boy, I'm not in the mood for it.


	5. Chapter 5

Dudley, Harry, and Snape each sat on varying chairs in the living room, each with a small plate with some cake on it. As they ate, Petunia snored lightly from the couch, completely unaware of anything that was happening.

"Thank you." Harry said quietly as Snape was eating a bite of his cake. The boy looked up to the man. "For fixing the cut. I forgot to say it earlier, but thank you."

Snape finished his bite and he sighed, then put his plate down. "Potter, my role in your life, I thought, was to keep you grounded." Any other day he would have taken mild amusement in the confusion etched on the boy's face. "Allow me to elaborate- you are Harry Potter... The, Harry Potter, boy-who-lived, boy-wonder, golden-boy, et cetera. I believed it my role to provide someone who wouldn't treat you as a celebrity... Someone to ground you. To remind you that you aren't better than everybody else. Nobody on staff could have ever guessed you lived like this. To the best of our knowledge you were just as pampered here, as you are there. Believe me when I say, if anyone had known what happened here, you'd have been removed a long time ago."

"Headmaster Dumbledore knows." Harry said with a sneer. When Snape tilted his head to the side, Harry gave more information. "I think he thinks that I don't remember... I only just put it together recently, but when I was small he came for a visit. I didn't hear much of their conversation, but I did hear about wards. Basically if any harm came to me, he would be alerted. I remember Aunt Petunia asking about if they 'accidentally' hurt me, could he turn it off so it wouldn't register for them. I don't remember what he said, but everyone was pretty happy when he left. So either he turned a blind eye to all of this and turned it off willingly for them, or he's sat through every alert and done nothing."

"Oh I remember that day!" Dudley said as he thought back. "I pulled the old man's beard. I thought it was fake. They laughed about it."

Darkness invaded Snape's features. "I see..." He said as he pondered what he knew. "How many times has something like this happened? Like the stab wound?"

Harry shook his head. "She didn't stab me, I fell onto the knife."

"She pushed you onto it. She must have seen it. She stabbed you without actually stabbing you." Severus countered. "How many times?"

Harry shrugged and stuffed his face with more cake. Dudley took his turn to chime in. "Something this big happens like twice a year, or it did before Harry started school. Last year daddy nearly bludgeoned him with a rock for trapping me in a snake cage."

"It was an accident!" Harry cried out.

"What was an accident?" Vernon's voice called as the front door opened. "Boy, so help me, if you broke another plate I'll have your hide!" The loud man bellowed.

Severus stood with his wand drawn, and the second Vernon came into view he called out, "Obliviate!" The same as he did with Petunia, he took advantage of the man's confusion and forced some of the sleeping potion down the man's throat.

The dark wizard let the man fall to the floor and he left his unfinished cake on the couch. "Come, we're leaving." He stated. "Where's your supplies?"

"I'll go get them." Harry said as he started off for the stairs.

Severus held out a hand as though he were going to grab Harry's shoulder, but he chose not to. "Potter. Summon them, summoning charm."

Harry frowned at the man. "We're not supposed to do magic outside of school."

"No one in the history of the wizarding world has ever followed that policy, Potter. Summon them, it will be quicker."

With a nod Harry pulled out his wand. He looked over the fresh scar on his right arm and hmm'd lightly. "Accio Fire Notes!" He called out. The notes with the red twine came flying down the stairs. He then went to the closet and pointed his wand to the locks. "Alohamora."

Dudley whined as Harry removed his trunk from the cupboard. "I don't want to leave... That's my mum. I love her."

A glare set on Snape's face as he took hold of one end of Harry's trunk and looked to Dudley. "They don't remember you. They don't know you exist anymore. To them you are some stranger's child. If you wish to keep what memories of them you still have, I would advise you deal with the circumstances and drop it."

Dudley fell in on himself and became quiet and sullen as the group left. When they reached the road, Severus held up his wand as though he were hailing a taxi. "Home." He said simply, then put his wand down.

Within moments the triple decker bus returned. Stanley came out of the doors and nodded. "Oh, taking the whole crew? Where to, Mr. Snape?"

"To my house." Severus informed him as he dropped the trunk onto the ground and told Harry to do the same. "Thank you Stanley." He gave the attendant 2 galleons from his pocket, and Stanley soon loaded up the trunk.

"I don't have any of my stuff!" Dudley cried out.

"You'll get new stuff." Severus informed him. "Your rooms will be taken care of later as well, I will return before they awake. In the meantime, we're going to my house, and you shall be on your best behavior." The man sat down on a bus seat and the boys sat across from him. "House rules are as follows- no running through the house unless it's an emergency. We eat three times a day, no more than that. This is a TEMPORARY situation. You will not be living with me permanently, consider this a foster home until we can find you a permanent one. Don't get too comfortable. There will be no arguing or back talking. It is yes sir, no sir. Am I understood?"

"Yes Sir." They both said quietly as the bus doors closed and the gears shifted.

"Hold on to something." Severus said as he gripped tight the bar beside him.

Soon they were off in a flash of something that neither boy could really understand. The world whizzed by them at extreme speeds. Both children vomited soon after.

"Augh- first timers." Stanley growled as he grabbed onto a mop from the back.

* * *

Harry and Dudley looked around completely taken aback. Snape's house was less of a house, and more of a run down shack. It looked to be so dilapidated, in such disrepair that they were both surprised it still stood. Looking into the windows they could barely see any furniture, and there was no sign whatsoever of anything even mildly electrical inside.

"No tv..." Dudley whined as they approached the door.

Harry elbowed him in an attempt to shut him up. He watched as Snape pulled out a key and unlocked the door, then brought the two of them inside.

"It's a charm." Severus informed him as he closed the door behind them. Inside there was far more furniture and light than it looked through the window, though it was still old and dusty. At least it had enough seating in the living room for everyone. "Keeps people from stealing if they can't see what's to steal." He lay the keys on the entry table as they passed an old and broken, beat up and torn apart thing that used to be a fireplace. "No floo travel here. Don't ask why." He told them as he led them down past the living room and into the hallway. He opened one of the doors. "This is the guest bedroom. Tonight you sleep here. I will arrange for dual beds by tomorrow evening." He told them as he furthered his short tour down the hallway. He opened another door. "One bathroom. Do not touch the potions in the cabinet. They aren't labeled because I know what each one does. You don't. If you take the wrong thing you could die. If you are in need of healing, come to me. I've a potion for nearly every ailment."

"I miss my mummy..." Dudley said as they walked on.

"I'm sure you do." Snape stated simply as he continued to the kitchen. "Breakfast is at 8 am, lunch is at 1 pm, and supper is at 6 pm. Get yourselves drinks when you feel like it, cups are in the cabinet to the right of the sink. You will wash your dishes immediately after using them, no exceptions." He turned around to look at them both. "If I find intentional rule breaking, or you argue with me over much of anything, you'll be scrubbing cauldrons. Accidental rule breaking will result in a warning, after which each additional infraction of the same degree will result in cauldron scrubbing." He ignored Harry's groan. "My potions lab is in the attic. You're not allowed in unless given my express permission. Dursley, we're going to get you outfitted with a wand and some robes. Potter, you're to share your books with him and tutor him on what you already know in the following week. I expect him to have an understanding of the summoning spell, the banishing spell, the levitation spell, and the wand lighting spell by week's end, and to perform them with a basic level of competency. If you need aid in teaching him these things, come to me. I will be tutoring you both in potions 2 days this coming week, you'll have Saturday off." He looked to Harry for a moment. "Merlin knows you could use a refresher course in potions, so I'll be starting with basics." He turned and headed for the front door. "Come along Dursley!" He called.

Dudley whimpered a little but ran to catch up.

* * *

"-and that the basics of the levitating charm." Harry said as he closed his Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1. "Do you think you could cast it?"

Dudley blinked rapidly at him as he tried to take in all of this information. "Harry, I couldn't cast it yesterday, or the day before, what makes you think I can today?"

Potter groaned and thunked his head against the back of his chair. "But you've already got the summoning spell!"

"Well yeah, it gets me stuff." Dudley said with a nod as he pulled his wand out and pointed towards his drink. "Accio Glass." He held out his hand and grinned as the glass slid directly into it. "See? Didn't even have to get up and that thing was all the way on the other side of the table."

"Well so does the Wingardium! It can be a more accurate form of the summoning spell... sort of." Harry tried.

"No, it just floats there." Dudley countered as he waved his wand about.

Harry looked rather annoyed at the boy. He pointed his own wand towards Dudley's glass. "Wingardium Leviosa!" He called as he levitated it. There was a shakey start, but it soon leveled itself out, and he levitated the glass right over to himself and into his hand. "See? You control exactly where it goes and how it gets there, but with the summoning charm it just comes at you at full speed. This way you're actually in more control."

Dudley groaned and looked up to the ceiling. "But the Acc- sorry not supposed to say the spell with a wand in my hand." He put his wand down then resumed his stance of groaning. "But the Accio spell gets it there faster, and you put out less energy, doesn't that make it better?"

"Lazier maybe." Harry scoffed.

"Brush your teeth!" Snape's voice called from the mini office corner of his living room. "It's almost time for bed."

"Okay!" Harry and Dudley both said back. Soon they were off to start the night's routine.


	6. Chapter 6

"Potter, I need to speak with you." Severus said as the pajama clad boys wandered off to their room.

Harry looked towards the living room, then back to Dudley. "Guess I'll come to bed in a minute." He said with a shrug as he made his way alone towards Snape. "Yes Sir?"

Severus folded the parchment he was working on then looked to Harry. "Take a seat, this will take more than a minute." He said as he interlaced his fingers on the work desk in front of him. When Harry sat, he continued. "I want to know why you never retaliated against your guardians. I want honesty."

The boy felt his throat clench and he pulled his legs up onto the couch. "Er, well, I don't... really know." He admitted as he glanced to the ground and furrowed his brows. "I guess... they're my family. You're supposed to love your family, no matter what. Right?"

Severus shook his head. "Family or not, nobody is allowed to attack you in that manner. What you've experienced is abuse, nothing short of it. Had you retaliated, with or without magic, it would have been justified. Potter, I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but your life was in danger. I wouldn't have stepped in otherwise. You're twelve years old. Your aunt was already pushing you into blades, you were locked in your room like a caged animal, and you had been kept for 11 years in a small room no larger than a half bathroom in a cheap flat. The time where their attacks began to enter fatal territory had happened already. Do you realize that the knife that woman pushed you on was in an artery? Had you tried to pull it out on your own, you'd have likely bled out given what disposition I saw of you there."

A squeak sounded out as Harry shifted on the couch uncomfortably. "Yeah I get it, they were buttholes."

Severus' nose flared and he clenched his hands together. "They were monsters! Merlin's sake boy, don't you get it? You're not a weak child, you have defeated the Dark Lord twice. Once when you were a baby! Do you not comprehend the power you hold? You are nobody's sounding board! Stand up for yourself!"

Snape stood from his chair and firmly placed his hands on the desk in front of him. Harry was quickly becoming visibly irritated by the man. He sat quietly and gave a small glare towards his professor as the man just continued on.

"Do not just sit there and allow people to shit all over you. That is not a mark of 'being nice' or whatever drivel they're teaching you children nowadays, that is the mark of weakness and a lack of self-respect. When someone attacks you, attack them back! When someone hurts you, hurt them back! When someone-"

"Depulso!" Harry called out with sweep of his wand. Severus was sent flying back into the wall with a loud crack, and it was then that Harry realized what he'd just done. "Oh my god..." He dropped his wand. "I'm so sor-"

Severus was laughing. Severus Snape, scariest man Harry ever knew, was laughing as he stood up from the crash which had put a hole in the wall. "Don't you dare say you're sorry, Potter." He told the boy with a small chortle as he cracked his pained back. There was a bit of an unsettling grin on the man's face. "We start self-defense training tomorrow. Go to bed."

Confused and a little perturbed, Harry made his way back to the bedroom that he and Dudley shared. As he closed the door behind him it let out a creak, and Harry made a b-line for his bed. "Snape's starting to scare me." He said as he tugged his blanket up to his chin.

Dudley peered at him from his own bed. "I can see why... you had to go to school under that guy for a whole year?"

Hedwig hooted softly from her perch and hopped down onto Harry's bed. She made her way to the boy and sat herself down near his head on his pillow. Harry reached out to pet her. "Yeah but that's the problem, this is why he's scaring me. First he's nice, which he was never nice in school, he always hated me. And yeah I get the whole 'there to ground you' crap, but that's definitely not it. I mean sometimes I can still see his hate for me, like a minute ago when he was telling me that I wasn't weak, he looked angry about it, so I know it's more than that, but then he laughed." Harry sat up in his bed, rustling his pillow and annoying his owl. "Snape never laughs. He's cruel, he's serious, and he's tough, that's his M.O.! I swear I think he just enjoys confusing me and seeing me suffer."

Dudley rolled over so he could face his cousin and he frowned. "What was that about anyway? Why'd he want to see you?"

Harry flopped back down and let out a sigh. "To goad me into 'standing up for myself'." He muttered.

"Oh..." Dudley said. "Well to be fair you are kinda an easy target." He shrunk back at the glare from his cousin. "I'm sorry but it's true. How many times have you let me beat you up and not even tried to stop me?"

"That's not the same and you know it!" Harry snapped. "If I would have retaliated against you, then Petunia and Vernon would have beat me senseless. Your beatings were a lot less painful than theirs..."

All was quiet for a moment as Dudley shifted his gaze down to the ground. For a brief second it seemed as though he'd fallen asleep, then he spoke once more. "I know it was wrong... I didn't really put it together until maybe third or fourth grade. By then though, I just figured you deserved it, cause they weren't like that to me, so I thought they were seeing a part of you I wasn't. I didn't really get that you didn't deserve it though until maybe last year. They were still complaining about you and what you weren't doing while you were at school. Sometimes they'd talk about what they'd do to you when you came back because of all the work you were missing. That was when it really clicked. But... I still miss them. They were still my parents, ya'know?"

Harry stared at the ceiling above him. "Of course you still miss them. You loved them. You got whatever you wanted from them and I had to scratch and pry and fight to even survive." The boy quickly sat up and clenched the edge of his bed. "You got to go to school at the right age. You got to eat real food, good food at meal times. You were never locked in your room for days on end, hell you had a room! So yeah, you miss them... good for you. Just imagine how much more horrible they'd have been to you if you would have gone to Hogwarts... they'd have treated you like me."

The boy huffed and pushed himself back into his bed. Hedwig nuzzled his face. "You probably did accidental magic that I got blamed for too..." He muttered quietly. Silence filled the room.

* * *

After breakfast the following morning, Snape had called both of them outside into his little square of fenced in backyard for their first round of self-defense training. "The reason I am teaching both of you, is I seem to have found the time to. I haven't yet found a trustworthy home for the both of you, I've found plenty that would adore to take Potter but only Potter, however I fear they'd use you for your fame. I've found some that would be okay taking Dursley, however those only seem to want one child as well. I still stress that this is a temporary situation, however due to the current restrictions, it appears as though your week with me will be a month..."

The man let this information sink in to the boys, then he drew his wand and looked towards them. "On to the lesson- self defense. You will not be needing your wands, and I require that you do not rely on them. Please remove them and place your wands on the back stoop, you may reclaim them afterward." He tucked his own wand back into its holster.

Dudley frowned and crossed his arms. "If we have to put ours up why do you get to keep yours?"

"Because, Dursley, if one of you should break a bone or injure yourselves in any way, I will need immediate access to summon any number of potions from my lab." He glanced up to the attic window. "That is why the window was left open, many health and mending related potions are laid out up there on the table, and thus are out of the way, yet easily obtainable." The dark wizard crossed his arms and stared at the two, waiting for their cooperation.

The boys relented and put their wands on the stoop of the back door. When they returned, Severus positioned them some ten feet apart. "I understand that Dursley has expressed an aptitude for offense in the past, thus contributing to Potter's aptitude for preservation, rather than defense. The goal of this lesson is NOT preservation. It is defense through offense. Dursley, since you have the most practice in this area, I want you to try to punch me."

The silence that surrounded the air was deafening. Both boys stared at Snape as though the man had lost his mind. Severus re-positioned himself and sighed. "Come on now, Dursley! You know how to throw a punch, don't you?"

Dudley looked to Harry, shrugged, then ran after Snape with a yell. As he raised his fist to punch the man, he found his wrist had been grabbed. All of a sudden the hand that had grabbed his wrist yanked hard to the right, and Dudley felt his arm pull backward as Snape stepped to the side, allowing Dudley to fall somewhat, but still holding his wrist.

Instead of allowing Dudley to hit the ground, Severus used his grip on the boy to hoist him back up into a standing position. He looked over the dazed boy for injury, then, when satisfied that there was none, continued his lesson. "You drew your arm back far too early, long before you were ready to actually throw the punch. This gave me ample time to see that you're right handed and to see where you were going to aim based on the position your fist and elbow had come to rest in. All I did was grab your wrist as it came towards me and jerked, using your own momentum to throw you off balance and propel you towards the ground. Had you actually hit the ground at full speed, you would have had the wind knocked out of you, thus becoming stunned for the moment allowing me to move in and take further action. Now we're going to do it again, slower this time with a step-by-step walkthrough. You will take turns practicing this defense on one another. Potter, you'll be the first to deliver the punch, both of you remember... go slow. We can speed this up once I'm satisfied that you've learned how to do this."

The group practiced this maneuver repeatedly, each time going just a little faster than before. As the hours wound down and the day grew cooler with the approaching night, they had done this move at least 100 times each, if not more. There had been many instances where both boys had fallen to the ground, some knee scuffing, and at one point Harry's arm had become mildly dislocated. Needless to say, Harry wasn't happy with relocation of it.

* * *

Creatures of the night sang their midnight song as everyone slept. The moon was high overhead, a crescent, similar to the Cheshire cat's grin. As everyone dreamed, their minds sorting and processing the day's events, Harry began to sweat. The boy was asleep, but his mind was not calm. Images of his fight with Quirrel and the parasitic Voldemort from the year before kept creeping into his dream. That invisible fire, that fear... that death.

Time after time, the boy relived that day, those final moments. He watched over and over as his enemy burned to dust. Finally the cycle broke as his dream replayed the event in which the large waft of black smoke pushed through the child, knocking him to the ground. Then he heard it... Harry heard laughter, cruel laughter that seemed to be all around him and seemed to fill him.

"Murder... murder." The whispers began. Black smoke swirled around Harry's entire field of vision. "Murderer..." Suddenly it was dispersed and Harry was back outside, learning the defensive tactic with Snape. The professor's words began to play in his mind. "When someone attacks you, attack them back! When someone hurts you, hurt them back!"

Out of nowhere, Harry saw the parasitic Voldemort's face. "I'm coming for you..." It said, then burst into laughter and flame which engulfed Harry as well.

Harry jolted up with a yell. He panted heavily as he looked around the room to gather his bearings. He'd woken his sleeping cousin, and from the hall, Harry could hear footsteps approaching. The boy lay back down and closed his eyes as his breathing began to regulate once more.

Severus opened the door, wand drawn and turned on the light. "What happened?" He asked, taking in the boy's labored breathing.

Harry groaned as Dudley covered his head with a pillow to block the light. "Just a bad dream." Harry muttered as he put his hand on his head. It was absolutely throbbing. "Do you have anything for a headache?"

"Come along Potter." Severus said as he tucked his wand into the arm holster beneath the sleeve of his long nightshirt. "What happened in your dream?" He asked.

"I dunno..." Harry shrugged as he glanced down towards his hands. "Just memories I guess... hey Snape?" He looked up to the man.

Severus opened his medicine cabinet and pulled out a small vial with a dull grey liquid inside. "Hmm?"

"Do you know anything about invisible fire?" The boy asked as he studied the man's face. "Like the kind that skips over blisters and removing skin and stuff and just goes right to burning people into dust?"

Snape stopped for a moment and he looked to Harry. "Potion, spell, or other?" He asked as he handed his headache remedy to the boy.

"Either a wordless wandless spell, or other." Harry said as he took the potion and drank it.

"Not really." Snape told him. "I know some things about a potion that causes an invisible fire, but nothing else... why do you ask?"

Harry groaned and made a face at the taste of the potion. He brought his fingers to his forehead and sighed in relief as his headache dissipated. "I was looking it up and couldn't find anything on it in the library at Hogwarts." He saw by Snape's expression that this answer was not good enough. "I umm... when I touched Quirrel last year... he burned up. Like into a dust. That's how I killed him."

"Oh." Severus said as his brows raised. "Mr. Potter, that wasn't invisible fire... that was something else completely."


End file.
